Cesc Fabregas told his Como players to stay humble and keep their feet on the ground after their extraordinary 9-1 win at Lens equalled the biggest winning margin in Champions League history.
Como's 9-1 demolition of Lens on Wednesday night was not just a win. It was the biggest away victory the Champions League has ever seen, in what was only the fourth European match in the club's history.
Tasos Douvikas scored a hat-trick, with Nico Paz, Lucas Da Cunha, Marc-Oliver Kempf, Mattia Liberali, Martin Baturina and teenage debutant Matteo Papaccioli also on target. Ruben Aguilar volleyed a consolation for Lens.
A night that rewrote the record books
The numbers behind the result are staggering. Como's eight-goal margin equals Liverpool's 8-0 win over Besiktas in 2007 and Real Madrid's 8-0 victory against Malmo in 2015, and they are only the second club ever to score nine in a Champions League match, after Bayern Munich beat Dinamo Zagreb 9-2 in September 2024.
No Italian team had ever scored even seven away goals in the European Cup or Champions League before, let alone nine. Como have now scored 19 goals in their first four European matches, and 11 different players scored or assisted in Lens — another competition record, as the records compiled by FotMob underline.
Douvikas has scored in each of Como's four Champions League games and is the tournament's current top scorer. Paz, meanwhile, was directly involved in three goals and has now done so in consecutive Champions League appearances.
Fabregas demands humility — and a clean sheet
Speaking to Sky Sport Italia after the game, in quotes reported by Football Italia, Fabregas refused to get carried away. "It is a wonderful night for Como, for all our fans and many lads here who are at the start of their careers, but they need to keep their feet on the ground, be humble, keep learning and not think everything will go well from here on," he said.
"It is also our fourth ever Champions League game, so four is the key number here. I'm happy, this is football and everything went our way. The lads did well, now we have to prepare for a very important match on Sunday."
Remarkably, Fabregas was even annoyed about the goal his side conceded. "I am angry over the goal we conceded, as we changed something in our defending with the three substitutions," he confessed, before revealing Aguilar is a former Monaco team-mate of his: "I told him I'd never seen you score a goal like that before! It was honestly a great goal."
For Lens, coach Yannick Cahuzac admitted the overriding feeling was one of humiliation, on a night that became the heaviest defeat a French club has suffered in the competition.
So what does it mean?
This was Como's sixth consecutive victory in all competitions, and it leaves Fabregas' debutants fourth in the Champions League league-phase table at the halfway point — a position nobody predicted for a side playing its first European campaign, having finished fourth in Serie A last season to qualify.
The tests now get harder. Serie A champions Inter visit in the league on Sunday, after Como ground out a 1-0 win over Venezia at the weekend, and the Champions League run-in ends with Paris Saint-Germain and a trip to Barcelona on January 27 — which is exactly why Fabregas was so keen to bank points early. "When I saw the last two games were PSG and Barcelona, I thought we needed to get as many points as possible in the early fixtures," he admitted.
Beyond the Final Whistle: A 9-1 away win in your fourth European match is not a fluke — it is a philosophy working at full power. Fabregas built this Como side to play out from the back, attack in waves and trust young players, and in Lens every single part of it clicked at once. The humility talk is smart management, but nobody in Europe will be taking Como lightly again: this is a team built to embarrass giants, and the giants are next on their fixture list.
Can Como really finish in the Champions League top eight — or will PSG and Barcelona expose them in January? Let us know what you think in the comment section.
